Adobe acquires Typekit

Just a few moments ago, Adobe’s CTO Kevin Lynch took the stage at their annual MAX conference and explained the company’s Creative Cloud strategy. Part of that announcement is very big news for us: Typekit has been acquired by Adobe.

We are thrilled. There honestly is no better place for us to continue building our platform. But perhaps even more significantly, this represents a huge step forward in bringing fonts to the web.

Not very long ago, web fonts were a curious and controversial debate. When the four of us founded this company, nobody knew if it would even work. We set up shop in a former morgue, sketched out a plan, and nervously published our first blog post. The response was immediate and not completely positive, but we’d fired the starter’s pistol. The race was on.

It seems odd to look back not even three years with a sense of nostalgia, but the environment in which we build the web has changed so much in so little time. At the end of 2008, HTML5 and CSS3 were becoming both viable and popular. Firefox, Safari, and Chrome were leapfrogging each other with amazing new capabilities, including the long-neglected @font-face spec. On the server side, a similarly important shift was happening: processing and storage could be rented by the hour and scaled at will. The so-called “cloud” was forming.

That was where we started. We asked ourselves what would happen at the intersection between web design and cloud computing. We quickly realized we could do two really interesting things. First, by serving hosted fonts, we could provide compatibility to all browsers and devices — both old and still to come — using the latest, most up-to-date best practices. Designers using our platform would no longer have to track browser hacks and bulletproof syntax. They could focus instead on creativity and expression.

Second, we could innovate on the business side as well. We could sell fonts as a service, and use a subscription model to eliminate Byzantine licensing and usage issues. We gave designers all-you-can-eat access to a library of font families, shared revenue with our partners, and carefully cultivated our business as it began to grow.

And grow it did. Few sites used web fonts when we got started; today, new sites seldom launch without them. Typekit now serves nearly three billion fonts per month on over one million different sites, including some of the most recognized brands on the web. We host the iconic typefaces of the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker, among others. We’re forging new ground with web-native companies like Zynga, Twitter, and the Gawker Network. And we’re making web fonts available to as broad an audience as possible, offering integration with platforms like About.me, WordPress.com, Posterous, and Behance. And that just scratches the surface: our blog is full of examples of the most innovative typography on the web today — all powered by Typekit.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without an amazing collection of typefaces, created by the most talented type designers in the world. They have gone out on the proverbial limb with us as we’ve repeatedly tried new things. For a craft that traces its roots back 600 years, reinventing itself at internet speed is significant.

If you’re one of our customers, this announcement means things will only get better. Typekit will remain a standalone product, as well as become a vital part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud. Our team will stay together, and we’re excited to start working on even easier ways to integrate web fonts into your workflow.

From the start, our vision has been to make the web more beautiful, readable, and fast. Joining Adobe will give us the opportunity to do that at an even larger scale. This news doesn’t mean we’ve crossed the finish line. Actually, we’ve really only just completed the first lap. The race to improve the web will only get faster. I hope you’re enjoying the ride.

You can find out more about the announcement in Adobe’s press release.

Great move for Adobe & the Typekit founders, that’s how capitalism works – congrats! But for the font consumer – I’m not so sure.

Adobe just basically ate the font distro competition. Has LESS competition ever been better for the consumer? Somehow I don’t see Adobe playing nice when it comes time to license their suite to other web distros, if at all. Why should they? Adobe is now the web font Ma Bell.

Amen. Every product that Adobe buys, they ruin. They talk a great game, but eventually divest all of the staff that make it great, the product goes downhill and eventually gets killed off. I am sorry to be negative, but Adobe just does not have the drive it once had, nor the heart to do things the right way, the first time. Now it is only about the short term profit. Gone will be the indie producers, up will go the price, twenty-mile-long terms and conditions will now apply and the awesome love and dedication will turn into a bureaucracy of boredom.

I am happy to see the Typekit team get a reward for an amazing service, but terrified to see Adobe ruin what they created so lovingly.

Adobe, prove me wrong. Prove you can let something grow naturally. Nurture this best in class service and leave your micromanaging way in the past, where they belong.

Absolute rubbish. If they are so bad why not name the excellent competition! I will name a couple of names I had the misfortune to use in my career.

Macromedia: Adobe bought them out dumped the crap products like Director and integrated the good stuff, making it usable where it was once buggy crap.
Quark: They broke the DTP monopoly of this dreadful monolith.
Fonts: Adobe postscript technology…

Congrats! Your free offering is a perfect no-risk way to get into web fonts, but I didn’t bat an eye when I decided to subscribe to a higher tier. The value for money is without question. As a customer, I’m excited to see what further improvements this new arrangement will bring.

I’m happy for the guys who put the work into Typekit and together with some others made some great strides in fonts on the web.

However, the old owners here, should know that this isn’t going to go over all smooth and even I have my issues with Adobe in many areas. So many times we here “we’re staying stand-alone”, only to 9 months later be merged into the rest of the big clunky system that bought them out.

I’m sure the Typekit guys know that quite a few of us are looking on with quite a bit of skepticism. Lets hope they prove me wrong because I love the service now.

Depressing… I loved Typekit because it was a great platform for independent type designers. There was premium customer service and you delivered a great product.

Adobe products? As designers, we’re at their mercy. They have a tight monopoly on industry programs. You say they’re going to let you be as a standalone product? They said that about Macromedia.

Obviously, we all have limited knowledge of the details and the incentives for what you’ve done, but I’m deeply skeptical. Adobe’s attitude towards technology, like Flash v HTML5 for instance, is reminiscent of Microsoft’s arrogance and mistakes.

Intrigued by the news, I been a big fan of typekit, and there fast progression, quality of typefaces. I believe the team behind the project will keep it in ship shape and won’t let it fall away.

This is an evident sign that web typography has took a huge leap forward, and is hear to stay, good to see the ‘big guns’ getting on board. Lets hope with adobe behind typekit that typography on the web continues to progress forward.

Looking forward to having my webfont’s available in fireworks and photoshop. Adobe just need to fix type setting in fireworks, its awful.

This announcement brings equal joy and concern for me. Joy, because this is simply awesome news for those at Typekit, and for their users. Concern because Adobe don’t exactly have the greatest reputation for high quality stuff.

There are exceptions though, such as their iOS applications which seem to be really good, so I’m remaining optimistic about things. Looking forward to seeing what happens going forward.

I think this development is great. Adobe’s lineage in the history of type is deep and were at the forefront of bringing type to the digital domain and it is at the very essence of their DNA. Type is at the soul of Adobe. If you don’t know this you don’t understand Adobe.

First, a big congratulations on a BIG return on your investments over the past few years. I’ll be hoping and praying that Adobe doesn’t destroy all those things that make TypeKit was it is. “Things could only get better” is not true when you look at other Adobe acquisitions, but I hope you are right! Good luck!

My heart sunk when I saw the email subject in my inbox. I hope TypeKit remains as it is, a simple, affordable, excellent service. If this means Dreamweaver integration, I’ll be much more optimistic about my future with Adobe!Typekit.

Like many others–mixed feelings: glad for the signs of your success, but very wary about what the acquisition means for users. Not a big fan of Adobe–I fully expect the price to rise and/or service to go down.

Sorry but I’m now considering cancelling my subscription as I’m proud to be Adobe free. Such a shame, you make a fantastic product then sell out to a greedy corporation so my dollars can line someone elses pockets instead of it’s talented owners.

To the Typekit people: First, congrats. Second, in order to remain successful and relevant, you’ll have to stay as independent as possible. And perhaps the biggest mistake you could make would be to hand over customer service to Adobe’s abismal service department.

With all the trouble I’ve had with Adobe’s products and services, I’m sorry to say that my Performance account and I will be leaving. I know losing one $100/yr account won’t even register, but if I’m not alone in my opinions of Adobe, I won’t be the only one on my way out.

You had a great run, and it was wonderful working with you. I hope you’re able to take advantage of Adobe’s deep pockets to further your service and your brand, but that you don’t fall victim to Adobe’s arrogance and poor business decisions. I wish you the best of luck.

Well done typekit. You built this to be sold, as per your track record. Did you get as much as your investors wanted? It’s a good time to get out, right when WOFF etc is taking hold. You’ve clearly got excellent business sense.

Congratulations on being rewarded for all your hard work guys. But, I can’t help feeling sad about it. Adobe has an appalling record for messing up great things, I have fond memories of Macromedia Fireworks 2004… Gone are those heady days. Also, the pricing. Adobe over price everything, Photoshop is a prime example of this, such an amazing piece of software, but completely out of reach to mortals such as myself. Such a shame. But again, congratulations guys, you deserve to be rewarded! Don’t take too much heed of us, I’m sure allot of people will continue to use the service for a long time to come.

I appreciate and hear everyone’s concerns about the acquisition. There are no guarantees in this, just as there were no guarantees that Typekit would make it this far. But Jeff and Bryan worked hard to ensure that our team would stay together, and continue to work as we have been: our process and commitment to our customers are a key part of our success, and we intend to continue on that path. I hope we have earned your trust in us this far, and that you can continue to trust us going forward.

Mandy, I realise that your people worked hard to get assurances they would be kept together. Your trust has been gained – you have a good product. My disappointment is grounded in your new boss – not the old colleagues. Which is what the situation now is. Do you believe that Adobe did not give such assurances to many others in the past? Have they already discussed possible benefits of integrating your sales process? I am sure some people have made enough money not to be concerned – I have no idea the size of your team. It won’t be a team all that long. I am always saddened that businesses which seem to be growing and decent seem to have no independent staying power.

In spite of all my negativity – I really do wish you all well and a positive future.

Well, this is depressing :( I’ve been doing everything I can to use Adobe alternatives (what few there are) and now, at some point in the future, I’ll have to find a replacement for Typekit. Time to research alternatives…

Sad news indeed. We were promised the same level of independence and persistence of quality with Intuit’s acquisition of Mint and that service is slowly working its way to irrelevance. Adobe thinks Flash is the future of the web…how can this partnership be considered a good thing?

But…I share the same anxiety as those above about Adobe F’ing this up. The only worse news would have been an acquisition by Microsoft, Sara Palin or the Jersey Shore. Then there would be no doubt in the destruction of Typekit.

My nightmare isn’t the price going up (which would suck), but Typekit only becoming about Adobe faces. This would be a colossal loss for Typekit users (and hours of more clicking through ho hum faces). The world of type is much bigger than Adobe.

If you want to make us happy, work out a deal with Klim Type Foundry, Process Type Foundry, House Industries and Hoefler & Frere-Jones.

This would be an epic win for everybody. I would find it hard for any Typekit users to argue with this. As a user I want more quality not just more faces.

There are absolutely no plans to eliminate other foundries from Typekit’s service. Adobe welcomed our foundry partners to the fold today, and all of us look forward to working together over the long haul. As Adobe said themselves, the plan is to make it easier for our customers to use the fonts of their choice, regardless of the foundry.

@ Mandy – I never assumed that Adobe would replace the current Typekit faces, but an overflow of Adobe’s faces would make typekit feel more like weeding through Adobe’s 2K plus faces. Regardless, I appreciate the clarification. In all honesty and fairness, Adobe does bring some core faces to the table. Thank you. However, there is a reason why I go elsewhere for faces. I hope this will continue to bring in excellent foundries and not scare them away.

@ Tim – You gotta admit that is somewhat of a gray issue here. You all don’t offer PTF faces at Typekit. You have to purchase them from PTF. Then you can add them to your Typekit account. Which is an annoying process. I know Typekit can’t make everyone follow suit, but I am saying that it is a huge win every time you do. To Typekit’s credit, you all have not only made the use of more faces possible, but the UI, ease of use and price point perfect. PTF and some other big dawgs are still messing this up.

I can see how my comment above comes across as ungrateful. And for that I apologize. My frustration is not with you, but with other foundries that continue to avoid Typekit’s better solution for making great faces available online. I’m still hoping that I can one day find the foundries above listed natively in Typekit.

I think this makes total sense with the overall business plan. The point is to serve customers, and Adobe can obviously really help make that happen. Things obviously can’t stay the same, because that’s like going backwards on Internet time.
I have a lot of confidence in this team, so I see great things ahead.
Congratulations Typekit; I’m really happy for you!

Haters gonna hate! Font licensing as it stands is broken, this is a step in a really positive direction.

Well done! Adobe = MASSIVE library of fonts. Typekit = Successful and effective distribution platform. Adobe + Typekit = BOOM! Personally, I’m really excited to see where this goes, I just want to use the fonts I want to use, legally and hopefull, now it would seem I can?

Congratulations! I hope that this won’t affect your pricing structure which at the moment is very affordable and easy for the little guy (freelance designers like me!) and end up feeding the Adobe monster and their crazy pricing models.

Its a great product, and service and I hope that things only change for the better!

I’m glad for the typekit crew that they’re cashing in on their hard work, but as a Typekit user (since the beginning!) I can’t help feeling I’m about to get royally screwed over by Adobe.
Trying to keep an open mind, but feeling sad about this takeover.

Mandy, I don’t think it is you that we users of typekit don’t trust. It is the new ownership. How many times was this same stuff muttered when buying Macromedia?

I’m not giving up on typekit yet, but you are obviously aware that any small hiccup in service now is going to be sending many of your users to the hills because they expect (and why shouldn’t they) that adobe erases the spirit of typekit.

I can’t speak to anything related to Macromedia; but I can assure you our commitment to Typekit is not about to be erased. By trusting in us, you also trust our decision to join Adobe, and our ability to continue improving on our service in the coming weeks and months.

I, for one, don’t believe our users are about to run for the hills. I do think they will be watching us carefully, and that they have very high expectations for where we are headed. And we will do everything we can to meet and exceed those expectations, just as we always have.

Wow, i’m really not glad, just dreading “Air integration” or whatever the platform du jour will be. Nothing against the Typekit team (I think they’re incredibly awesome and deserve all the success in the world) but there’s no way Adobe won’t ruin this, it’s a company run by marketing hacks, not developers.

Well done Adobe I have been one of your biggest fans and I use your products starting from Distiller to Illustrator, Premiere Pro to CS5. In those years I can tell that you really know how to set course that is most suitable by everyone connected to your products. So I trust that this one big change you have made will be smoothly adaptable by your customers. Congrats and Cheers!

I’m afraid I need to echo whats being said. Typekit – I love you guys. The web now looks awesome, and personally I love fonts, so I nearly fell out of my chair when I found you guys. The pricing is spot on and the service is excellent, and your blog has a nice personal touch.

Adobe – Feel free to add new fonts, and help the service grow. Leave the pricing along, don’t bring Flash anywhere near it, leave the pricing alone, don’t change how it works, and did I mention leave the pricing alone?

Illustrator is one awesome tool, but even a minor upgrade from one version to the next costs more than I can afford. Typekit have changed the web by keeping it accessible for all, so I really hope that Adobe continue this.

Also, someone commented here that Adobe’s products aren’t affordable. They have made them affordable via subscriptions. Their products are probably amongst the best out there, so of course they are expensive. But they are no longer unaffordable.

As for possible changes to Typekit’s pricing… Adobe know very well that there are other, just as good, similar font service providers out there, and they can easily lose customers to the competition if they push things too far with pricing. So I don’t think we need to worry too much about that.

You’ve identified exactly the problem: “Adobe know very well that there are other, just as good, similar font service providers…” and so therefore will probably not up the prices of Typekit.

But what does that infer about Adobes other products? That they have a monopoly and therefore can charge whatever they like.

As for the new subscription model being affordable, this is another point I’ve noticed. The subscriptions appear to be more affordable, but in actual fact they are more expensive than buying the products.

I think it’s safe to assume at least a 2-year life span out of an Adobe application. InDesign costs around $700 to buy outright, but the price for subscription over two years is $840.

It’s these tactics and the introduction of complicated pricing models and peered product models/packages which are turning most customers off Adobe altogether, independent of the bloating of their products and apparent lack of innovation.

A lot of Adobe hate here. Let’s mention some areas where Adobe excels. While the software is expensive, they have always offered incredible bargains for students. And they were one of the first company’s (only) that allow people to create commercial work with student software, to upgrade that to full versions, and not to have time limits or crippling on student software.

They premiered the concept of complete limited time demos when other companies were offering crippled versions that were hard to evaluate.

They have excelled at packaging quality fonts for end users, through massive collections given away free with software, to special promotions like Adobe Type for Education, with fonts as low as a few dollars each.

The company has tended to buy technology … I think Illustrator is the only program they actually created. Surely you don’t think they have ruined all of the purchases.

I wonder how long we have until the service goes down, a little notice would be appreciated from the TypeKit staff so my clients wont freak out. I am thinking we should transition out before the renewal comes up.

“Typekit will remain a standalone product; there is no need to transition. We look forward to offering even more services over time, so your subscription will keep getting better and better.” Mandy Brown

I´m just hoping this doesn´t change things.
Everything is great now, princing, support, functionality, everything. So I can just congratulate the crew, as long as the service keep as good as it is right now.

Congratulations, Typekit! As a loyal customer, I hope you maintain your good customer service. I have had TERRIBLE experiences with Adobe’s customer service and would hate to see this happen with you guys. Other than that, I was pleased to hear this news today and you are joining an excellent family of products!

Adobe has a complete monopoly over the creative publishing industry. Now I don’t have a problem with some monopolies like, Apple’s iPad in the tablet market, or Google’s search. But clearly Adobe takes advantage of its monopoly position and its customers.

Adobe doesn’t listen to its customers. New features are released in a half-finished state leaving users waiting for the next major upgrade which equal another sale for Adobe. Tricky release cycles and complicated product bundle tactics don’t win over customers. Maybe that’s why Adobe’s software is the second most pirated in the world behind Microsoft.

So what does this mean for Typekit? The first thing we’ll see are price increases and the introduction of a complex series of pricing models and useless add-ons and features that will eventually ruin what was once a great experience.

Back to Adobe: The online pricing revolution is clear. Apple spelled it out with great success years ago with iTunes online music store. Price low and go for scale.

@ Jason Says:
October 3, 2011 at 10:19 am … adobe does suck in some ways … but to say they ruin everything they get their hands on is just crazy talk … last I checked … the differences between CS2 and CS 5 are noticeable enough for Ray Charles to be able to see them … also the fact that almost all graphic designers use adobe products … and regardless of mac of pc usage … says something … I would agree that their pricing is a bit over the top … I paid 2 grand for cs4 and literally 6 months later … cs5 came out … and I called to get tech support for something … and they were like sorry dude … if you dont have cs5 tech is only available for a cost … anywho … my only worry with adobe is their pricing scale …

I am sure congratulations are in order if selling for a profit were the only reason you invested so much of your soul into the application. However, you just lost your app and I – personally – will not be using it since I do not trust Adobe to manage your product so well as you did.

I watched how Adobe treated friends who were employees on too many occasions to feel positively about their intentions for your current team. You may feel assured – don’t be gullible. Start looking for your next business and don’t become another Adobe Siberian outpost.

A sad sad day, its all been said, Adobe have a rack record of screwing things up, I am sorry that you guys at typekit have fallen for whatever siren song they sung to you.

An example: Interakt a small team like yourselves built from nothing, which made a fantastic brilliant extension suite for dreamweaver, adobe aquired them, everyone at interakt said the same as you, “we will remain independent”, “we can only go forward from here” “dont worry everything will be ok”, not even a year was up and the extensions everything interakt had done was buried and dead.

As wih typekit the product/service that interakt had was far greater than anything adobe had created or produced, and adobe killed it off.